Beyond The Veil
by Darke-Angyl
Summary: A new transfer to England from America changes everything. Sirius/OC
1. Chapter 1

Alyssa Mason made her way down the steps of the chamber where a great battle had taken place between Death Eaters and the Order of the Phoenix several days before. She had been listening to the stories since she had begun working for the Ministry of Magic two days earlier, the day after she had arrived in England.

Alyssa was from America. Even at the magic school she had attended there, the students had heard the stories about The Boy Who Lived and, more recently, the rumors about the return of He Who Must Not Be Named. She shook her head as she worked on cleaning up the chamber. That moniker had always seemed ridiculous to her.

Alyssa stopped after she had knocked the last of the loose masonry from the walls that had been messed up during the battle. She looked around to see what there was left for her to be able to do to help with repairing this chamber. She set one brook per row to sweep up what debris remained scattered through the rows of benches and moved down into the general area.

The raised platform with the cursed veil sitting on top of it stood proud despite the damage that had been done to it. She walked slowly around the edge, thinking about the past few weeks of her life.

Alyssa's grandparents had owned one of the largest manors in London, England. When their only daughter, Violet, had started listening to Lord Voldemort, they had quickly disowned her and kicked her out of the manor. Her grandparents had chosen to remain on the side of Albus Dumbledore, becoming members of the original Order of the Phoenix.

Alyssa's mother had started staying with various fellow Death Eaters and had ended up pregnant with Alyssa. After Lord Voldemort's failed attempt on Harry Potter's life, Violet had fled to America with her young daughter. Within a year, she had met and married the man who had helped her raise Alyssa. She had never told him or Alyssa who the little girl's father was.

Alyssa was almost sixteen when she received a letter from a man named Professor Albus Dumbledore, who informed her that he was the Headmaster at Hogwart's School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. He let her know that her grandparents had passed away and that arrangements had been made for her to come to England and reside in Mason Manor in their place. As she was only fifteen, she would have to go before the Minister of Magic to prove that she was able to care for herself. There had been a first class plane ticket included with the letter that her grandparents had also arranged for, along with a letter of acceptance into the school and a list of the supplies that she would be needing for the coming school year.

Alyssa had left her parents' house without hesitation the very next day. She had never gotten along with her mother or her step-father, and she had decided quickly that moving to England would be the best thing for all three of them. It would also give her a chance to discover who her grandparents had been and hopefully find out the identity of her real father.

Alyssa sighed and sat down on the edge of the platform to take a break as she continued to think about the events that had brought her to where she currently was. She had met with the Minister of Magic, Cornelius Fudge, and had successfully proven to him that she could care for herself. She had even convinced him to hire her to help with the clean up from the attack that had happened a few days before her arrival.

Alyssa shook her head, pulling her thoughts back to the present. She had proven to Minister Fudge that she was responsible enough to be trusted on her own and with a job, but she doubted that he would continue having that opinion of her if she was caught daydreaming when she was supposed to be working. She looked up at the rows of benches to find that the brooms had finished their sweeping jobs. She conjured bags for the dust pans to dump the gathered debris into and turned her attention back to the platform and the veil resting on top of it.

She walked all the way around the platform and knocked the loose stones off into the floor so that she could determine exactly how much damage had been done to the area. Its repair was above her skill level, but she had been instructed to clean the entire chamber thoroughly and to include a detailed list of all of the repairs that would need to be done in the report she was to turn in at the end of the day. She pulled a roll of parchment, a quill, and an ink well from an inside pocket of the black robes that she wore and sat back down on the edge of the platform to start writing up her report. Suddenly, her head snapped up. She looked over at the veil with wide, surprised, eyes, sure that she had heard a voice coming from inside of it.

"Hello! Can you hear me?!"


	2. Chapter 2

"You can hear me? Help!"

Alyssa's eyes widened, knowing that she had definitely heard a voice that time. She hesitated for a few minutes, trying to decide the best thing to do. When Alyssa had been told to clean this room, she had been warned about the veil. She had been told that it would suck her into it and then she would never be able to get out again.

Alyssa took a slow breath. She had been doing some private study on her own since she had arrived in England. She pulled her wand from an inside pocket of her robes and muttered a few words under her breath. A moment later, a strong rope began to come out of the tip of her wand. It coiled on the floor at her feet for several moments until there was more than one hundred feet of rope for her to use.

Alyssa picked up one end of the rope and looked around for the best place to tie it off from. She finally decided that the leg of the lowest bench would be the best place and quickly secured it. She wrapped it once around her waist, took a deep breath, and dove head first into the veil.

Sirius gasped when he felt the veil move. He reacted on instinct as he reached out and grabbed the person who had jumped inside. It was completely dark inside and impossible to see anything. "What the hell do you think you're doing?" he demanded.

Alyssa maneuvered around until she could grab whatever the man was holding on to. "Helping you like you asked me to," she responded. "I have the rope secured at the other end. You should be able to climb up it and get out."

Sirius didn't hesitate. He had no idea how long he had been trapped inside the veil, and he was more than ready to get out again. He grabbed the rope and quickly climbed out and into the chamber beyond.

As soon as the veil settled back down after the man had crawled through it, Alyssa felt the rope around her waist begin to tighten. It felt as if there was someone or something below her that had grabbed the end that was dangling down into the nothingness of the veil. Whatever or whoever it was that had it was pulling it as hard as they could, causing it to tighten around her waist.

"Are you okay?" Sirius called back into the veil. He had expected whoever had gone in to rescue him would be coming out as soon as he was free, but no one was climbing out.

Alyssa started gasping, trying to draw in as much air as she could with the rope tightening around her waist. She tried to grab for the rope with one hand to climb out, but she was quickly becoming disoriented as her air supply was cut off. "Help me!" she managed to scream one time.

Sirius grabbed the rope and began to pull as soon as he heard the plea for help. He growled under his breath as he encountered some kind of resistance, pulling harder.

Alyssa screamed again as the rope around her waist tightened further. Tears of pain fell down her cheeks as she writhed in the air. She kept grabbing for the rope with her free hand, clinging to whatever it was the man had been holding on to with one hand, willing herself to stay conscious.

Sirius planted his feet against the stone that served as the base of the veil. He wasn't going to allow anyone else to be trapped or to die inside the veil, especially after he had been inside of it himself and knew what it was like in there.

Alyssa screamed a third time as she finally managed to grab the rope with her free hand. As soon as her hand closed around the rope, whatever or whoever had been pulling on it from below released it. She started gasping in lungful after lungful of air as the man pulled her out.

Sirius breathed a sigh of relief when it suddenly became easier to pull the rope. It felt as if more than one hundred pounds had dropped off of it without any warning. He kept pulling on the rope until his rescuer was all of the way out of the veil.

Alyssa immediately started pulling at the knot that was keeping the rope wrapped around her, wheezing as she tried to get her breathing back under control.

Sirius knelt down next to the young woman and untied the rope from around her waist. "Are you okay?" he asked her. He was concerned about the color of her skin. "You don't look very good."

Alyssa slowly nodded, grabbing the bottom of the t-shirt she was wearing and pulling it up a little to reveal two thick welts that went all of the way around her body. "Something below me grabbed the rope as soon as you were safely out and started pulling. I thought the rope was going to cut me in half."

"I wonder what made it stop." Sirius looked thoughtful as his gaze fell on the veil.

Alyssa shook her head, coughing a little as her breathing eased up. "I have no idea, but it was like someone flipped a switch or something. As soon as I managed to grab the rope with my hands, whatever had the other end of it let it go."

Sirius helped the young woman to her feet. "I can't thank you enough for going in there after me." He studied her carefully, noting that she looked just a little older than Harry. "What's your name?" he asked her.

"I'm Alyssa Mason," she responded. "You're Sirius Black, aren't you?"

Sirius hesitated for just a moment before he nodded his head. It wasn't like he could hide any longer. He was too well known these days. "I assume you'll be going to get Minister Fudge now?"

Alyssa gave him a soft smile. "Actually, it's Minister Scrimgeour now." She corrected him. "But, no. I'm not going to be turning you in." She pulled out her wand, concentrating for several long moments before a bright silver wolf shaped patronus burst from the tip and disappeared through the wall. "I have to get back to work before someone gets suspicious and comes looking for me. Someone from the Order will be contacting you any time now to help you get out of here safely."


	3. Chapter 3

Alyssa finished writing up her report on the things that she had done to help clean up the Chamber of the Veil and smiled slightly. Finding that Sirius was alive and helping get him out of the Ministry undetected was more than she had bargained for, but she was pleased with the work that she had been able to do for the Order of the Phoenix so far. No one inside the Ministry of Magic seemed to suspect her at all.

Dolores Umbridge narrowed her eyes as she passed by the small office that had been given to the new American witch. She turned on her heel, making a fast decision as she walked into the office without bothering to knock on the door. As the Senior Undersecretary to the Minister of Magic, she had the right to go into any office whenever she wanted to. "My, my!" she exclaimed. "Aren't we working hard in here!"

Alyssa finished double checking the last of her report before looking up. "Is there something that I can help you with, Secretary Umbridge?" she asked politely.

"Quite the opposite," Dolores replied. "I came to see what I might be able to do to help you. After all, we've never had a student working inside the Ministry before, even just for the summer. I'm sure you must have a lot of questions."

Alyssa let her smile grow to match the one that was on Dolores's face. "Minister Scrimgeour has been extremely generous. I've been learning a lot of things this summer that I don't think I would have had the opportunity to in the states."

"I am sure that you have," Dolores agreed. Her eyes settled on the parchment that was on the desk in front of the young woman, and she reached for it. "What is this?"

Alyssa picked up the parchment and stood to her feet. "It's my report on the work I've been doing down in the Chamber of the Veil," she explained.

Dolores reached out again, this time to take the parchment from the young woman. "I will take that," she insisted.

Alyssa shook her head, rolling the parchment up and tapping it with her wand to seal it shut. "That won't be necessary, Secretary Umbridge. Minister Scrimgeour was very specific about me being the one to bring this report directly to him, but I do appreciate the offer."

Dolores cleared her throat and straightened her shoulders. "You do realize, do you not, Miss Mason, that I am the Senior Undersecretary to the Minister of Magic? I see everything that he sees." She kept her hand held out, obviously expecting Alyssa to hand over the roll of parchment.

Alyssa tucked the roll of parchment securely into an inside pocket of her robes. "I'm sure you'll be seeing my report soon enough then." She smiled again as she stepped around Dolores, stopping briefly at the door. "Do me a favor and close the door when you've finished searching my office and leave, won't you?" She didn't bother waiting to see Dolores's reaction, turning and walking down the hall to the far end where the Office of the Minister of Magic was located.

Minister of Magic Rufus Scrimgeour looked up when someone knocked on the door of his office. "Come in!" he called out. He relaxed back in his chair and smiled when he saw Alyssa Mason open the door.

"My apologies, Minister," Dolores suddenly spoke as she pushed her way past Alyssa and into the office ahead of the young witch. "I tried to get her to give her report to me so that you would not be disturbed, but she was being insubordinate and cocky. She refused to hand the report over."

Alyssa clenched her fists inside of her robes but kept a pleasant expression on her face, saying nothing as Dolores spoke. She waited patiently and remained silent once the older witch was finished speaking, keeping her posture straight and her eyes on the minister, waiting to hear what he would say.

Minister Scrimgeour smiled tolerantly at Dolores. "I appreciate you trying to help, Dolores, but Alyssa is simply doing as I instructed her. I wanted her to be the one to bring her report to me, no one else."

Dolores's posture stiffened as she inclined her head slightly. "Of course, Minister. My apologies." She gave Alyssa a cold look before turning and walking out of the office.

Minister Scrimgeour laughed as he turned his attention to Alyssa after Dolores had left and shut the door behind her. "I am sorry, Alyssa. Dolores can get a bit over zealous from time to time, but she does mean well."

"Yes, Minister," Alyssa responded. She reached inside her robes and pulled out the roll of parchment that she had written her report on, sitting down in the chair across the desk from the minister as she handed it to him. "I hope you're not too disappointed in my abilities. I went into extra detail in my report so that I could explain the things that still need to be accomplished but are beyond my capabilities."

Minister Scrimgeour nodded, his eyes on the parchment as he read her report. Once he was finished, he looked up at her. "I prefer details, Alyssa. Never worry about giving me a report that is too long."

"Yes, Minister," Alyssa replied. She frowned slightly. "I suppose my job here is finished since there is nothing more that I am able to do in the Chamber of the Veil."

Minister Scrimgeour held up his hands. "Don't be so hasty, Alyssa," he answered.

Alyssa tilted her head slightly to one side, looking curiously at the minister. She held her breath, not daring to hope that she had earned the minister's trust so quickly even though that was part of what Professor Dumbledore had wanted her to strive for. "What do you mean, Minister?"

Minister Scrimgeour rested his elbows on his desk and steepled his fingers together as he studied the young witch carefully. "I would like for you to continue working in the Chamber of the Veil, Alyssa," he finally spoke. "I will arrange for those coming in to do the more detailed repairs to teach you some new skills and spells."

Alyssa let her eyes sparkle with excitement as she leaned forward in her chair. "That would be amazing, Minister. Thank you so much." She reached out and shook the minister's hand as she stood up to leave.

"There's just one more thing, Alyssa," Minister Scrimgeour commented. He waited until the young witch turned back toward him before he continued. "I'd like to have the witch and wizard who will be teaching you the more advanced magic instruct you in a few other things as well."

"Such as?" Alyssa questioned, her curiosity peaked.

"Such as the skills you will need to become my Junior Advisor," Minister Scrimgeour answered.

Alyssa's eyes widened. "I still have one year of school left, Minister Scrimgeour," she reminded him. "I'm supposed to complete it at Hogwart's."

Minister Scrimgeour nodded his head. "I'm well aware of that fact, Alyssa. I promise that this will not interfere with your studies. I will contact Professor Dumbledore, and he and I will work out a schedule for you that will be beneficial to all of us."

Alyssa grinned. "Yes, Minister. Thank you again for this incredible opportunity." She was still smiling as she left the Ministry of Magic and stopped at a small café to get a bunch of take out food to take home.


End file.
